This one is for the little guy.  This is for the disqualified ones, the barely hanging on, the ones who don’t belong, the struggling but still faithful.

This is for my church.

Every day, I read the blogs of about ten other pastors and church leaders in my desire to learn from others and improve my ability to do this thing we call ministry.  These ten pastors are mostly higher profile guys, leading influential churches to dizzying heights of effectiveness in the kingdom of God.  It’s hard not to be blown away by all that God is doing in their churches.  Here’s a sampling of just four of yesterday’s posts:

“Biggest attendance yet at Elevation today…over 2400 people worshipping at one of our two campuses… 28 people gave their lives to Jesus… Also, 268 people showed up for our Newcomers Lunch…We had more people at our Newcomers Lunch today than we had in our Easter services last year.  Praise God for continuing to do more in our midst than we could ever take credit for.” (Steven Furtick, Pastor of Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC)

“I told you last night about more than 200 that had publicly made a first-time decision to follow Christ.  Today there were 400 more who joined them.  That’s right… more than 600 adults decided to follow Christ this weekend in Granger, Indiana!  What an amazing weekend!” (Tim Stevens, Executive Pastor, Granger Community Church, Granger, IN)

“Today is going to be a huge day for us here at The Orchard as we baptize over 100 people at our annual BBQ & Baptism!” (Scott Hodge, Lead Pastor, Orchard Valley Community Church, Aurora, IL)

“What were the results of today?  We saw over 110 people receive Christ!!!  THIS NEVER GETS OLD!!!  YEAH GOD!!!”   (Perry Noble, Senior Pastor, New Spring Church, Anderson, SC)

Now I’ve never written a reflection on the blog about our Sunday services like these pastors have, but if I had this past Monday, I might have written something like this:

“We had people who actually came back to church today!!!  It’s amazing – they came once before, and I’m not sure if they got lost on the way to check out another church, but somehow they wound up back at our front door!  Yeah God!!!” (Eric Stillman, Pastor, NewLife Christian Fellowship)

It can be hard for me sometimes not to be wowed by the numbers from other churches… and even more by the fact that each number represents a person who is making a significant spiritual decision because of God’s ministry through one church.  Their impact is part of what motivates me, knowing the potential to transform a community and world that exists in a church that is sold out to doing whatever God calls them to do.

But truth be told, there are far more churches out there like ours then there are like the aforementioned megachurches.  Churches who may not remember the last time someone made a decision to follow Jesus, and are presently using their baptismal for storage.  Churches that feel invisible in their community, and aren’t sure they are making any impact for the kingdom.  Churches that have come close to shutting their doors and giving up, and have no guarantee that things will change by this time next year. 

This is for those churches.

And the truth is that there are many other pastors out there like me.  Pastors who can’t quite figure out how to balance family and work.  Pastors who can see a fuzzy vision of the future in their head but can’t quite see past next Sunday’s sermon in order to pull that vision off.  Pastors who have been told that they would never make it in ministry, and have plenty of days where they wonder if that might be true.

This is for those pastors.

One of my favorite Christian speakers and missionaries is a man named David Pierce, who travels around the world with his band, No Longer Music, bringing the message of Jesus to Satanist clubs, anarchy festivals, and anywhere you wouldn’t normally expect to find Christians.  Pierce wrote an incredible book called Dancing with Skinheads and other Bible Study Topics, and one thing he wrote in there that I’ve never forgotten is this:  “Do something small for God.”  He said that so many people want to do something big for God, to do something that really changes the world.  But often it’s the small, overlooked, seemingly insignificant things that are the biggest steps of obedience to God. 

Sometimes as a small church, we can feel like we’re not making a difference because we aren’t doing anything particularly world-changing.  But I’ve found that one of the best things about being a small church is that it’s easier to see the many ways in which people are doing awesome “small” things for God.

Like Jason, who began coming to church even though he was cynical about Christianity because it was important to his wife and it would help him know her better.

Like Gary, who greets every newcomer to our church like they are his long lost best friend.

Like Gloria, who rejoices at the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with a four year-old when that girl is the only one who shows up to Sunday School that Sunday

Like Matt, volunteering hours behind the scenes to maintain and improve an awesome website that has brought more people into our church than the rest of our church members combined.
 
Like Eve, Irene, and all the other prayer warriors who refuse to believe that God is finished with us.

This is for them.

The most fascinating name I’ve ever come across for a church is Scum of the Earth Church of Denver, Colorado, a stark contrast to your typical uplifting church name (like Blessed Victory & Hope Cathedral… or even NewLife for that matter).  Their name comes from Paul’s words about his band of Christians in 1 Corinthians 4:11-13 – “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.  We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.”  SOTE Church purposely chose their name in order to emphasize the fact they are no better than anyone else, and to proclaim that they would be a church for the outcasts, the rejects, the ones who might not fit in a traditional church.

There’s a lot of wisdom in that name, isn’t there?

So this one is for the downtrodden, the burnt out, the ones who are close to throwing in the towel.  This is for the forgotten, the dismissed, and the perennially struggling.  This is for the oddballs, the skeptics and cynics, and all who take one step forward and five steps back, but still recover to take another step forward.  This is for the churches that refuse to give up on God and the pastors who won’t stop believing in the potential of their church.  Because if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s this:  a pastor who has been beaten down and a church that has been left for dead may not add up to much in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God I believe it’s a recipe for one thing:

Revival.

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